Sounders lament three set piece goals

Here’s some of what the Sounders had to say after their 3-0 loss to Vancouver at CenturyLink Field:

SIGI SCHMID

Opening statement:

“Obviously it was a disappointing match for us…It’s one of things where a team is already in a rut and then you take an early goal, and everyone’s head drops a little bit. I think it took us a while. I thought towards the end of the half we started to play a little better – I thought we could come back in the second half and do well – and we take another early goal in the second half off of their corner kick, and everyone’s head drops a little bit. We got ourselves a bit back into the game – obviously we had more looks on goal, more shots than in the previous few weeks – at the end of the day it wasn’t good enough.”

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“The plan was for him to go all 90 minutes. We weren’t worried about that based upon what he had done, so his performance was like everybody else’s. Sometimes I felt we forced some balls into him, we needed to go somewhere else with it. I thought Vancouver did a good job of killing that space in front of their centerbacks, making it tough to play into Clint.”

On the starting lineup:

“It’s a disappointment because we had different starters from the last game, and I don’t think anyone in that locker room is pleased with the result. It’s disappointing because we felt we had a good week of practice, even though Clint and Chad Marshall weren’t here the whole week, but it is something we need to do better.”

On establishing connections between players:

“It’s never going to be that easy. I tried to caution people who thought, ‘OK everybody is back so it will be snap of the fingers and it’s going to all happen again.’ That’s not the way it works. You’ve got to get players back to playing again and on the same page. [Erik] Friberg has never played with Dempsey before, today is his first game playing with Clint – we tried him in a slightly different positon to begin the game, so that was an adjustment. Clint hasn’t play with Thomàs, so there are connections there that aren’t established.”

GOALKEEPER STEFAN FREI

On what he could have done differently on the goals:

“I have to go back and look at it. There’s always something you probably could have done better but disappointed to give up three goals on set pieces.”

On giving up goals on set-pieces:

“Well the third is probably a good finish. In general we just gave away too many silly free kicks around the box and maybe one was just in a nice sweet spot for him to take advantage and obviously he took advantage of it. A centerback with two goals for them is right spot at the right time but still we have to be in the right spot at the right time. You can’t just always say it’s bad luck. We have to win individual battles, we have to be sharp defensively on set pieces and do better.”

On how he feels physically:

“I feel good, yeah. It’s good to be back. It sucks to lose another game.”

On the need for the team to come together as a team:

“It’s huge; I think we’ve been trying to take it one game at a time. People might say this is an important game or that is an important game. I think any game is a chance to get out of a slump and any game is a chance to get back on a run. Whether that is on Wednesday or the following game, right now Wednesday is our next game and we have to prepare for that so tomorrow we have the day off. We’ve got to make sure we take care of our bodies and after that we have limited time on the field to get ready but we have to make sure we get better in those limited days.”

DEFENDER BRAD EVANS

On the potential for revenge on Wednesday:

“Yeah, not so much revenge. We’ve just got to back to playing our style of soccer and get back to our winning ways so our focus is on us, not on the other team.”

On what went wrong:

“Three set piece goals. The first one takes a deflection off my hip and bounces straight to Kah and he bangs it in. The second one, short corner, shoots, and Kah gets another cheeky little touch, little back heel. And the third one the wall separates and he bangs it in. So that’s a consolation goal at the end and team-wise we have to defend as a team and offensively as a team too so not good on both ends tonight.”

On the loss being different with more guys back:

“No, I think every loss is crappy, obviously. Considering the circumstances and losing so many in a row now is not an ideal situation but the only thing we can do is put a smile on, come into practice and get back to work. I say put a smile on but we’ve all got to have good attitudes moving forward so we can’t sink the ship right now. So, if changes need to be made that’ll come from up top but we’ve all got to come in and work. We’ve got a big one on Wednesday night.”